


Best Laid Plans

by mosylu



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, No actual porn, sorry - Freeform, unashamed food porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2018-03-20
Packaged: 2019-04-05 00:58:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14032662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mosylu/pseuds/mosylu
Summary: Caitlin had it all worked out. First the perfect outfit, then the delicious dinner, then wine and candlelight, and ending the evening finally kissing Cisco Ramon.But she didn't hear the oven go off. Her evening is not going according to plan.





	Best Laid Plans

**Author's Note:**

> For thapnbkrsnowvibe on Tumblr, who requested a story from the prompt, “I’m trying very hard not to see all this as a metaphor for my life.”

Caitlin heaved a sigh, dropped her head back, and told the ceiling, “I’m trying very hard not to see all this as a metaphor for my life.”

The smoke alarm shrieked. The lasagna that she’d worked on all afternoon was a scorched-black lump. Her pan was probably ruined too.

She sniffed and wiped away tears. “It’s just a lasagna,” she scolded herself.

But it wasn’t, and she knew it. The lasagna had been a single but critical cog in a carefully crafted plan, and now it was trash.

Cisco was due any minute, and she was still in her robe, with no makeup and her hair barely blow-dried. Her main dish was completely ruined and there was no time to throw together something new.

She sniffed again and then pulled a chair over and climbed up on it to turn off the smoke alarm. When it had been silenced, with a last surprised tweet, she rested her head against the top of the door frame and mourned briefly for her ruined evening, which was supposed to end with her in Cisco’s arms.

Sometimes it seemed like her dating life since Ronnie’s death had been nothing but trying to feel more than she did, or disastrous breakups. Or both. Often both. But Cisco had always had a place in her heart. Sometime after he’d first gotten together with Cynthia, she’d realized that the place he occupied had transformed from platonic to romantic without her noticing.

She’d told herself then that it was hopeless. He had a girlfriend, one he was madly in love with. She’d hated herself for the ember of hope that had blossomed when he’d told her that they’d broken up. “Too different,” he’d said, sagging in her comfy armchair with his third or fourth stiff drink. “We love each other, but we don’t want the same things. And the things we want - they’re kind of all or nothing.”

“I’m sorry,” she’d said, and gotten more ice cream out of the freezer.

She’d counseled herself to wait, to let him heal, to watch for signs that he was ready to risk his heart again.

In the past month, she’d been seeing those signs, and more, signs that he might be already willing to risk it with her. Casual touches that lingered longer than usual. Banter that leaned toward flirtation. Small, thoughtful gestures, that wouldn’t have seemed out of place in Cisco’s history of thoughtful gestures, except for the smiles he gave her along with the cup of tea he brought to her desk, or the candy bar he picked up when he was out. Long text conversations about nothing in the middle of the night.

But if they were ever going to be anything more than text buddies, one of them was going to have to move things along, and she’d decided it was going to be her. Except that her meticulous plan had gone off the rails the moment she turned on her hair-dryer and missed hearing the over timer go off.

She looked over and saw the wine on the counter. She hopped off the chair, grabbed a corkscrew, jammed it into the cork, and worked it out of the bottle with a pop. Without bothering with a glass, she took a deep chug straight out of the bottle.

It was a nice red wine, and it would have been really nice with her burned lasagna.

She was considering another chug when the doorbell rang. With a gasp, she stuck the bottle back on the counter and bolted for the door.

“Hey - what burned?” were the first words out of his mouth when she opened it.

“Lasagna,” she said, letting him in. “I was drying my hair and I didn’t hear the buzzer.”

“Awww,” he said. “I’ve been there. Sorry.” He gave her a quick hug and she told herself to let go when he did, not to cling to him, not to snuggle close and bask in the smell of his shampoo and the feel of his body against hers. “You didn’t have to make dinner. I told you I’d bring something over.”

“I wanted to,” she said. “But I screwed it up.”

He squeezed her upper arms to comfort. “Look,” he said. “Why don’t I go get a pizza? Will that work with the rest of your menu?”

“Sure,” she sighed. “Go for it.”

“Be right back,” he said, and opened up a breach in the middle of her entryway.

When it sucked itself closed, she went back into her bedroom to put on clothes. Half her closet was scattered over her bed - pretty ruffled skirts that showed off her legs, low cut tops that framed her decolletage, dresses in a fine-gauge knit that clung to her curves. They’d all seemed not quite perfect for the intimate dinner she’d had planned.

They definitely wouldn’t work over pizza.

She put on a soft, drapey t-shirt and a pair of yoga pants, then pulled her hair into a ponytail and put on basic makeup. She started to put on a simple, sheer pink lipstick, then paused, wiped it off, and selected a redder shade.

Even if she couldn’t seduce him tonight like she’d planned, that was no reason not to make him think about her lips if she had the chance.

She shut her bedroom door behind her and went to see what else could be salvaged.

By the time he knocked again, she was feeling more cheerful. Yes, the charred lasagna was occupying a place of dishonor on the back of her stove, but that wasn’t the only thing she’d prepared. She did swap out her table settings, though. Thick-crusted, cheesy, greasy pizza just didn’t go with her fine china. She let him in with a smile.

“All right,” Cisco said, bearing a heavenly-smelling cardboard box toward her table and setting it down in the center. He plopped two twenty-ounce bottles next to the box, one orange soda and one iced tea. “We’ve got a large sausage and mushroom, because I ain’t looking at pineapple on pizza tonight, you Hawaiian-loving weirdo.”

Although sausage and mushroom did go better with the rest of the meal, she scowled playfully at him. He always gave her grief for her taste in pizza. “Keep talking like that and you won’t get any caprese salad.”

“Any what now?” he asked, transferring slices onto her red Fiestaware plates.

She shifted the box and showed him the plate. Fat chunks of mozzarella alternated with tomato slices, garnished with basil leaves, and all of it drizzled in olive oil and balsamic vinegar. She’d assembled it and put in the fridge before jumping in the shower earlier.

His eyes lit up. “Fancy!” He nudged his two slices of pizza aside to make room on his plate.

“Okay,” she said after serving herself. “Are you ready to plan?”

“Born ready,” he said, twisting the cap off the orange soda. “Hit me. What are you thinking?”

She pulled out her notebook. “I’ve jotted down some ideas. This is Iris’s thirtieth birthday. It’s a milestone. We want it to be special.”

He cut up a slice of mozzarella and swabbed up balsamic vinegar before popping it in his mouth. “Remind me why we’re planning this and Barry isn’t?”

“Because it’s supposed to stay a surprise for more than thirty seconds,” Caitlin said.

“And he folds like a cheap suit when she cocks her eyebrow. Right.”

She should feel guilty, using a party planning session as a pretense for luring Cisco into her clutches. But Iris, who’d listened to her agonize a few times, would more than understand. Anyway, Caitlin had ditched that plan.

Mostly.

She watched Cisco lick pizza grease off his lips and grin at her as he suggested a country western theme (which she shot down with a quickness) and reminded herself that she wasn’t going to jump him.

Which was too bad, because in that shirt and those pants, he was looking really good. And he was having an _incredible_ hair day.

They settled on a private room at Iris’s favorite restaurant the Saturday after her birthday. Caitlin wrote herself a note to check availability, and to figure out backup restaurants if that one didn’t pan out.

“We should have a decoy celebration,” Cisco suggested. “Like, tell her to meet us for lunch on Sunday.”

“Right! If we all just pretend to have forgotten, she’ll know something’s up. A decoy sounds perfect. Now, who are we inviting to the real thing?”

Cisco pulled up Facebook on his phone and went trawling through Iris’s friend list. “I’ll take care of contacting everybody,” he said, scribbling names down. “Hey, have you got contact info for Linda Park?”

“I can get it,” Caitlin said, writing herself another note. “Iris would love it if she made it from Coast City for this.”

By the time they’d eaten half the pizza and all the caprese salad, they had the beginnings of a really nice party. Cisco closed the pizza box. “Want to keep the rest of this?”

“You take it home,” she said, hopping up. “But I do have a new recipe that I tried for dessert.”

“I’m going to get fat if you keep making me all your finds,” Cisco said, not sounding terribly worried about the prospect. “They’re gonna start calling me Jello instead of Vibe.”

She grinned at him. “Maybe it’s awful. I did burn the lasagna.”

“Yikes,” he said, and loaded her dishwasher while she pulled the dessert out.

He tilted his head to study the mound of white dessert that she set in front of him. “Is this flan? Because I have to tell you, it’s on the pale side.”

“No,” she said. “It’s panna cotta. Taste it.”

He did, and made a noise in his throat that made her skin buzz. “Holy shit. What’s it called again?”

“Panna cotta. I made it last night.” She tasted it herself and almost sighed. It had really turned out well. Good choice to garnish with raspberries. Next time, she would have to do the mint chocolate variation she’d found.

“Just for funsies?”

“Well, I found the recipe and I really wanted to try it out.”

“And you knew I’d be here to help you eat it,” he said, taking another bite. “So how did you make it?”

She launched into an explanation of the recipe, how the cream had to just simmer, not fully boil. How you had to let the gelatin dissolve just right, why you had to warm the mixture and let it cool in a particular pattern so the chemical reaction could happen properly. How you could add vanilla or almond or tea or anything, really, to flavor it and then add even more things on top when it had chilled overnight, and then - if you chose - unmold it onto a plate before garnishing. It was her favorite kind of recipe - scientific precision on the one hand, endless flavor choices on the other.

He watched her, smiling as he ate his panna cotta. “Maybe you should make it for Iris’s party,” he suggested.

She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t think I’m up to making this for that many people, and the restaurant might have something to say about it.”

“Okay,” he said with a laugh. “You’ll just have to make it for me again.”

She looked up to see him smiling at her, and her heart skipped a beat. “Okay,” she said, telling herself that her voice wasn’t breathier than Jessica Rabbit’s. “Sure. Anytime.”

Their gazes locked and held until her heart fluttered again, and his lips parted. He blinked, breaking the spell, and set his spoon in his empty dish. “I’m gonna - “ He gestured vaguely in the direction of her bathroom. “Um.”

“Sure,” she said, and had to sit for another five or ten seconds, catching her breath, before she could get up and take the panna cotta dishes to the sink. They had to be hand-washed, but she couldn’t do it now. She’d probably break one.

She cleaned up the rest of the table, checked that Cisco had loaded the dishwasher properly (he had) and was considering how salvageable the lasagna pan was when Cisco called out, “Hey, Caitlin?”

“Hmmm?”

“Can you come here a minute?”

She went to the living room to see him studying her coffee table. “So, what’s this?” he asked.

She swallowed hard. She’d forgotten about that setup. “Um, candles. And wine glasses.”

“Fancy candles,” he said. “And your good wine glasses. And I couldn’t help but notice there was a pretty nice red wine breathing on the counter all through dinner.”

“Oh,” she said. “I forgot about that. Yes.”

“And I know you’ll probably be mad and I’m sorry, but I may have slightly snooped in your bedroom on my way to the bathroom and I noticed your closet had exploded.”

She felt herself go red to the hairline. “… Yes,” she admitted. “It did, kind of.”

He tilted his head. “Did you have a plan for tonight?”

She nodded slowly. Her face felt hot enough to cook an egg. “But I burned the lasagna and spent too much time looking for the right outfit and ruined it.”

He smushed his lips together. “That’s an easily ruined plan.”

“You know how I am about my plans,” she said.

“Yeah,” he admitted, and picked up one of the wine glasses. “Too bad. This looks like it would have been pretty nice.”

She stood looking at him twisting the wineglass in his fingers, and thought, _I’m on Team Flash. Plans going wrong is where we live. I should be able to improvise._

She curled her toes against the carpet. “Do you want to know what end I was planning toward?” she asked.

He looked up at her. “Kinda would. Yeah.”

“Okay,” she said. Whispered, really. “Okay.”

She reached out and took the wineglass from his hand. Setting it down on the coffee table, she rested her hands on his shoulders and leaned forward to kiss him.

He went still, and she thought, _Oh, oh no, I’ve misread everything, I -_

Then his arms slipped around her waist and he kissed her back. Cautious at first, learning how they fit together, what she liked, what he liked. Then the kiss became more confident, hungrier. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed up against him, and he hummed in his throat the way he had when he’d tasted the panna cotta. This time, the sound thrilled her right down to the marrow.

They had to break for air eventually, and leaned together, panting. “So,” he said, his thumb rubbing against her rib cage through her thin shirt. “That was the end of the evening? In your plan?”

“Well,” she said, stroking her fingers through the baby-fine hairs on his neck. “No. Not necessarily.”

He smiled at her, his big joyful Cisco smile that she’d always loved to see, and said, “I was hoping you’d say that.”

FINIS


End file.
